FDA Issues Standard for Lead in Wine

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday issued a temporary standard for wine permitting lead concentrations 20 times greater than what is permitted for water.

The agency also renewed its efforts to keep pregnant women from drinking by noting how dangerous lead is to developing children, and again advised consumers to wipe corks and bottle lips before pouring the wine.

The FDA said it soon would prohibit lead foil wrappers over the corks.

The FDA asked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to prohibit sale of any wine with more than 300 parts per billion of lead as a temporary measure until a permanent standard can be set.

A bureau report in July found some wines with concentrations as high as 1,980 ppb, though only about 3% exceeded 300 ppb.

Officials have said the lead standard for wine need not be as stringent as that for water, which is 15 parts per billion, because people do not drink as much wine as water, and children may not legally drink wine at all.

Lead is a poison. In high concentrations, consumption can lead to a variety of disorders in adults, including high blood pressure, personality changes and kidney damage. Children are particularly vulnerable because lead acts on the developing brain to produce permanent reductions in learning ability.

The agency used the occasion to renew earlier warnings to pregnant women and nursing mothers against drinking wine.

“The scientific community has not found a level at which it can say that lead is safe,” said James Mason, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services. “Thus our public health strategy calls on all agencies to eliminate lead exposure wherever practicable, but particularly where it can expose the one most sensitive to it--the developing child. In the case of wine, the unborn child might be exposed through wine consumption by a pregnant woman.”

The FDA is studying the need for lead limits in other foods.